Today I am looking at a list of excuses that people often give for not fulfilling our/their obligation to the welfare of the Biosystem. And then I noticed that the Compassionate Earth Walk (http://www.compassionateearthwalk.org/
is hearing some very similar responses in their discussions with local residents as they walk the pipeline route. And what could be a more glaring example than the Tar Sands Pipeline of what TomDispatch has termed Terracide (http://www.tomdispatch.com/dialogs/print/?id=175703).

How very odd, this, in a country/continent that is powerful and well educated enough to commit “Terracide.” and the most common excuse for not fulfilling our responsibility to the welfare of our living earth is that we “Can’t do anything” or that someone else should first tell us what to do.

The consequences are as obvious. If the earth Biosystem runs out of what we need to stay alive, then we will not stay alive – individually or as a species. Your choice is as simple as the sunrise and sunset, and the choice is not to “win” anything, nor to find some way to be a hero. The choice is whether or not to fulfill your responsibility to Life. Either you fulfill your responsibility or you don’t. Whatever you want or whatever you say or whatever you believe will not change that producer/consumer supply/demand relationship. You can’t have whatever you want, but if you work it right, you might be able to help save Life as we know it.

Yes it is too bad we have let it get this far, but that is not a reason to let it get farther. Fifteen years ago I was writing about the choices we had then. Now we have only one. Do what is required to permit Life to rebalance itself. Or, not. There is no technology other than human birth control that can rebalance the Life of earth, because humans don’t understand enough about the “physiology” of the ecosystem to know how to “fix” the physiology of how life functions https://factfictionfancy.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/. We do know how to fix our human problem, but rather than DO what is necessary to solve the problem, we are making excuses. Here’s an example.

Water and food:

Problem: There is not enough water on the whole earth for all the people on earth. There is not enough food for all the people. (You may say you don’t believe this; I say that what you believe does not change how the earth functions to stay healthy.)

Solution: Make more food and water — or make fewer people.

Difficulty: We can’t make food or water. THAT is why we need the resources of the earth.

The fact is that the food and water systems were working fine before we tried to feed too many people. Now some folks are rejoicing that they are “fixing” the food or the water system. That is not a triumph – it is another excuse for not fixing the problem, which is us. Too many people for the available amount of food and water. Trying to “fix” the ecosystem does not address the problem or its cure. The way to fix the problem is to stop causing it and until we do that, the problem will continue to get worse.

Either we use our intellect and/or our emotions, as communities, to STOP CAUSING THE PROBLEM. Or we don’t. If you have another goal in life; if your goal does not address the cause of our problem (no matter how glorious your goal), then that’s your choice, you don’t need an excuse to make a choice, but the resulting terracide is your legacy – not mine.

I choose Life.

Here are a few more examples:

Climate:

Problem: The climate is changing in such a way that the species of organisms which evolved in our human-friendly climate, most of them are dead or dying — no longer able to survive in the new climate. This is because there are too many toxic compounds in the system. Just for one example, carbon dioxide. There is too much carbon dioxide in the air.

Solution: We need to either make less carbon dioxide (and other toxins) in the air, that is, stop burning so much carbohydrates in our bodies and our machines) – or make fewer people.

Difficulty: The fact is that the climate was working fine before we messed up the carbon cycle, and “fixing” the carbon cycle without reducing the numbers of people is not a success. It’s an excuse to not deal with the problem.

Medicine and Health:

Problem: We generate pesticides and herbicides and antibiotics and hormones, perfumes, cleaning compounds and radioactive chemicals that cure some diseases and cause more other diseases (when they begin to cycle in the ecosystem and affect plants and animals that aren’t sick to begin with) than the ones they cure.

Solution: Face facts and stop trying to make every individual fertilized human egg live forever; stop running all those toxic compounds down the drain, releasing them into the air, and dropping them into the ocean or out of airplanes. Or reduce the number of people who are using these products.

Problem: We want what we want when we want it. We don’t care about any of those other fertilized eggs as long as we can pretend that we all can live infinitely just the way we are today.

Human Rights, War, Hatred and Compassion

Problem: The situation keeps getting worse with every generation because it is not possible to have human rights for everyone when there are not enough resources for everyone to even stay alive. Thus we cannot have human rights now because now we have more humans than there is food. Our people would rather pretend to be compassionate than to actually BE compassionate and do what is necessary to maintain the balance of welfare for all sentient beings – for the welfare of all of Life. So our government (which knows all the above) has to go offshore whenever it chooses to kill off some excess humans (yes they have their excuses to not face the problem at hone), while at the same time preparing to conquer and control us citizens whenever we finally figure out that we CAN’T HAVE whatever we want when we want it because there aren’t enough resources available on earth because there are TOO MANY PEOPLE.

Solution: The fact is that we are biological organisms, and our brain evolved – both the thinking part and the emotional part – as all things evolve, to aid in our survival as a part of the whole earth organism. So the solution is to stop using our intellect and emotions for playing games and start using them to solve the problem we already know how to solve.

If we say we want the good life, then it’s clear we don’t think that we have it, and it should be the prime directive of the social and hard sciences at this point, rather than grubbing around trying to make the Ecosystem jump to the tune of the Corposystem (that’s us) to spend as much time and energy as we can learning how to humanly BEHAVE in such a way that we can give the ecosystem what it needs to be healthy. So we THEN can have a chance to grow a sustainable, healthy human culture.

“To destroy our planet with malice aforethought, with only the most immediate profits on the brain, with only your own comfort and wellbeing (and those of your shareholders) in mind: Isn’t that the ultimate crime? Isn’t that terracide?” (http://www.tomdispatch.com/dialogs/print/?id=175703)

I am feeling very sad today because I don’t really believe that anyone else cares enough to try, or only a few, and probably it doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things if we spend our lives and all our human dreams on something that doesn’t really matter because we don’t care enough to find out how to make the dream come true.